“’The U.S. administration is putting industry cost savings ahead of safety just weeks after the anniversary of the worst oil spill in U.S. history,’” said Diane Hoskins, campaign director for ocean conservation group, Oceana.

‘We should be implementing new safety reforms, not rolling back the too-few safety measures currently in place.’

The BP Macondo well blowout and fire on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig on April 20, 2010 killed 11 workers and cost billions of dollars for Gulf Coast restoration.

The Obama administration had created a task force to examine the causes of the accident, and those findings were key in the formulation of the Obama-era rules.

Democratic Senator Tom Carper, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment Committee, said the new rule flouted the findings of that task force.”